


Leap

by softgrungeprophet



Category: Spider-Man (Comicverse)
Genre: Action, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anger, Blood and Violence, Gen, Green Goblin - Freeform, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Injury, Iron Spider Armor, Loss, Mild Gore, Post-Canon, Villain Character Death, peter does not die
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-07 08:15:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18616717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softgrungeprophet/pseuds/softgrungeprophet
Summary: Mary Jane Watson is sick and tired of sitting around waiting for everyone else to save the world.





	Leap

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cannibal_Wings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cannibal_Wings/gifts).



" _The city of New York is on high alert as news of the Green Goblin's latest—_ "

Mary Jane shut the TV off with a scowl, tossing the remote aside as she pushed herself to her feet.

The breakroom was quiet. Stark Tower, quiet.

Outside, filled with sirens.

She stood, forehead and palm pressed to the window, looking down on Manhattan from high above.

Who would it be this time?

Harry, again? Aunt May?

Peter?

Herself?

MJ grit her teeth, hand curling into a fist against the thick, reinforced glass.

She shoved herself away from the window, leaving that view behind—across the breakroom, out the ultra-secure doors, down the emergency-lit hallways. Deeper and deeper into the labyrinthine recesses of the building in search of her prize. Her way out of once more sitting, waiting. Being told to just hang tight, turn on the security system, let the AI do the work.

"I'm sick and tired of sitting and waiting."

The door she sought slid open with a hiss.

***

" _—Paging Spider-Man. Spider-Man, this is the Iron Spider. Requesting status update. Over._ "

The Iron Spider?

Was that suit even in use by anyone other than for Stark's tech demos, these days?

"Stand-by." Peter ducked behind a still upright column of smoking brick and mortar, a brief reprieve from the Green Goblin's seemingly never-ending assault. Just a moment, just a breath—

Norman's cackling must have made Peter mishear, definitely.

"This is Spider-Man; did you say your call sign was Iron Spider?"

The wall against his back shook, blasted on the other side by one of the Goblin's explosives.

" _Affirmative, this is the Iron Spider._ "

This voice—if he could just get somewhere quieter, a place to think, he could pick out why this voice felt so familiar, so... soothing.

" _Repeat: requesting a status update from Spider-Man. Do you copy, Spider-Man? Over._ "

Had to think—the wall had begun to buckle. Norman was shouting and laughing outside. Dust hanging in the air. The smell of ozone—a wash of nausea and bad memories, don't get lost in those, don't think about Flash—

Danger.

"Stand-by!"

Peter rolled back into the open as the ceiling came down just where he'd been a moment before.

Quick; a silk tether to the glider, and Spider-Man and the Green Goblin hand-to-hand grappling.

The glider rolled, and Peter clung, the whole situation swerving directly into the side of a building in an explosion of tinted one-way glass. Peter rolled off as they entered the building, Norman and his glider shooting into the room past him, giving him just a moment to catch his breath and the split second he needed to notice—

There were people in here.

Screaming at the sudden havoc.

"Hang onto your hats—" Peter shot a line of webbing after the Goblin, snagging him by the exhaust pipes. "—and DUCK!"

A big, wide swing, and Norman crashed back out through a different window, showering glass again—onto desks and covered heads.

Peter activated his comms as he ran across a few desks and leapt out the gaping hole after Norman, shouting, "Spider-Man on the line—I've got him under control for the time being but he's hard to keep down!"

He caught himself swinging at the last minute, hanging from the glider—his very own rope ladder to the top.

Norman shouted something unintelligible from above as that voice came in over his speakers again.

" _Keep on your toes, Spider-Man._ "

Didn't have to tell him twice.

He looked behind him and shot a line to the road as he pulled himself up his tether—"Who are you, anyway?!"

Missed, hit a stop sign—

Oops. Bye-bye, stop sign.

He shimmied closer, up beneath the glider, until he could stick to it with his hands and feet.

" _You wouldn't like the answer._ "

Oh, that sounded good, and definitely not bad.

Peter pulled himself up around the edge of the glider, pouncing at the Green Goblin's ankles, doing his best not to upset the glider's balance—

Norman shouted, and if it wouldn't have rocked his little boat, he might have tried to kick Peter off.

"You little insect!"

Oh, wait, he still had hands.

Peter got his feet up against Norman's chest as the latter shook him by the scruff like a kitten—oh, man, Peter didn't want to be a kitten...Oh. No, that was his throat. Okay.

He got his fingers up around Norman's hands, and took a gamble—

Peter unfolded himself against Norman's solar plexus, all his force into his heels as he arched his spine out like a shot and, sure enough, got Norman's hands off his neck—the glider bowled over, Peter in midair, the wind rushing and his spine tingling with the clang of spider-senses...

Norman and his glider slammed into a rooftop as Peter flipped himself through the air and landed securely.

Peter took a breath, grateful for this probably short-lived moment of respite.

This was starting to get to him. This whole thing.

Not just today, no.

Just... years of Norman Osborn; the specter of him breathing down Peter's neck, ready to resurface at any moment no matter how many times Spider-Man put him away. Just rubbing his hands together waiting to take something precious. Didn't matter how crazy he seemed, how hurt, how securely locked up...

And Peter had taken a bullet for him.

Like some kind of idiot.

And here came Norman Osborn again, as always. The Green Goblin gunning for him like a discount Halloween witch if discount Halloween witches were funded by Elon Musk.

Fist, knee, foot, hand, face—

The same thing all over again.

***

MJ swung in a wide arc around the corner of a skyscraper, letting her momentum carry her untethered through the air for just a second as she let go, and then shooting out and drawing herself to the edge of one of the older brick buildings sandwiched between the glass and steel. She listened absently to the police radios picked up by the iron suit's interior antennae and followed the path of destruction with her eyes.

The burning wreckage.

Back out into the air.

 _Thwip_ , release, repeat.

Below and around her, the background noise of her life. Sirens and shouting. Even in childhood, even before Spider-Man.

Follow that.

Follow that anger, that anxiety. Harness the adrenaline.

Smoke rose, in the distance.

"Spider-Man, talk to me."

No reply.

"Come in, Spider-Man."

She wasn't military. What was she doing? Trying to be taken seriously, not let her cover slip. Trying to keep things professional.

"Spider-Man, do you read me?"

Finally, a low crackle. " _Read you loud and clear._ "

He sounded strained, cutting out slightly, frazzled and staticky.

"What's your status? Requesting location of radio recipient."

Both Spider-Man and Stark's AI answered her at once, Peter mumbling something about being hurt, sending his location, and the AI spitting out its automated response, canned GPS information popping up on Mary Jane's HUD in a precise overlay that narrowed down into superimposed directional cues.

She took a sharp turn, and said, cool as she could, "I'm on my way, Spider-Man."

" _Glad to hear it, Iron Maiden._ "

He fizzled out, and she wasted no time closing in on her destination.

Translucent green arrows lighting her way.

The smoking wreckage of the goblin glider...

Past that smoke beacon.

***

Peter was worn down to his thinnest... He knew Norman must have been too—they had similar durability, similar stamina and strength. But you couldn't tell just by looking, by the way that man laughed and taunted Peter.

"I'm gonna do to you what I did to your little blonde fan club!" Norman caught Peter with a razor bat. Sliced right through his suit, through his skin, among the other patches exposed from their extended combat... Peter didn't even want to think about the collateral damage.

Peter caught Norman by the arm, and they struggled, as he hissed, "You think I care about myself?"

Elbow to his face, and Peter stumbled.

Norman, tunic ripped, laughed breathlessly. "You're right." He grabbed Peter and drew him close. "I do so like to watch you suffer."

" _Sadist_." Peter spat the word, with all the disdain he could muster.

For a second they stared each other down, until Norman whispered, "Maybe you're right." He shoved Peter away, so he hit the rooftop hard. Rose his voice—"But boy do I _hate_ it when you're right!"

Norman shook his arms out, and in the subtleties of that dramatic motion, Peter heard his gauntlets kick into gear, a tiny metallic whine.

"You should have killed me when you had the chance, boy!"

The Green Goblin, on him in a blink, spider-senses screaming—a dull, painful sensation stopping the world around him—

Suddenly Norman was gone, out of his line of sight, but he could barely hear or feel and he felt so strange and cold and tired, so he let himself drift with the vague knowledge of a bronze streak of movement and spiked arms that reminded him so much of Doc Ock...

MJ—no, the Iron Spider stood over the Green Goblin, pinning him to the dirty old roof with her telefactors, her mechanical arms tipped with tactile claws. She breathed heavy, just seeing his grotesque mask and the shocked eyes beneath it.

"You..."

Norman shifted into his usual superiority, confidence, and so on, with an amused laugh. The sort of sinister chuckle one might normally associate with James Bond villains, though MJ knew well enough the kinds of people who sounded like that in real life.

"To whom do I owe this pleasure?" He craned his head to see one of the manipulators better. "A friend of Stark?"

"Call me a friend of Spider-Man and leave it at that."

He let out an almost pitying sigh, halfway between amusement and the kind of faux sympathy a parent shows their child. "It's a shame your friend is dead, then."

All her mechanical arms to his face, slamming the back of his skull down against the concrete.

"You shut up," She covered his mouth with metal, one manipulator grasping his jaw shut, one on each wrist. "You son of a bitch."

He laughed from her grasp, and in a moment swept her legs from underneath her with his own—

She'd forgotten.

She hit the ground with a grunt, surprised enough to release her hold though she tried to grab him again right away—her inexperience against his dwindling stamina, his irrationality against her unfamiliarity.

She kneed him in the gut with all her augmented strength, and barely winded him.

He slashed at her with one of his stupid bladed boomerangs, and managed to slice through part of the outer layer.

She bashed one of her robotic claws into his face.

This time, do it right.

Web his hands to the rooftop, and his ankles too.

She stood over him, as her suit slowly repaired the small amount of damage it had sustained.

Again, Norman Osborn laughed, and again said, "He's dead, Friend-of-Spider-Man."

"You want to know who I really am?" MJ controlled her voice, kept it from shaking. "All that you've taken from me?"

No answer. He watched her, curious.

With barely more than a moment's hesitation, she reached up. The mask's seam unsealed along the back of her skull, the nanozipper splitting under her fingers as she pulled the mask up from her face. And the cap underneath, too, she pulled away to free her hair to the evening breeze.

"Ah..." Norman stared at her in wonder. "Mary Jane Watson... I should have known."

She looked down on him with disgust.

"You... awful man."

Carefully, using one of her metal arms and the fine manipulating tools on the tip of the claw, she tugged Norman's goblin mask off to see the face of the man who took such glee in killing the people she loved.

"Without fail, you come into my life." She let the one robotic limb rest again his forehead, holding his head in place. "And you try to destroy it."

"Oh?"

She focused on her breathing as she spoke.

"Without fail, you find the people I care most about, and you take them away from me."

Gwen.

Harry, once, briefly.

Flash.

Peter.

"Spider-Man may have spared you, time and time again, so you could come back, time and time again." She could not stop the grimace that must have distorted her face. "But I'm sick of it."

She paused.

"And I'm not Spider-Man."

Norman moved—but she wasn't stupid, and the second his hands tore up the webbing she had pinned him with, her claws slammed him down.

Skull.

Chest.

And one still holding the Green Goblin mask aloft.

He looked so startled, for just a brief second.

She barely registered her name on the breeze, as her manipulators ripped back out of his body, dripping blood.

The mask fell to the ground.

Once more.

Almost like a dance, but Norman Osborn had come back before and he'd come back again if she didn't—

"MJ?"

Her attention snapped to where Spider-Man had fallen.

The cracking of Norman's ribs barely registered as she saw that mask, white eyes wide and moonlit as Spider-Man raised his head to stare at her.

"Peter?"

He wasn't staring at _her_ , though.

He was staring at her blood-soaked claws.

"What did you do, MJ?"

That was it.

She slammed Norman's body into the ground yet again, as if that could undo the past, as she snapped, "The right thing!"

"By _killing_ him?!" Peter sat up, tearing his mask off, tossing it down in front of him. "That's not right—"

"BULLSHIT!" MJ ripped herself away from Norman's limp body. Flecks of blood flew from her artificial arms, as they snapped into the space around her like snakes poised to strike. "He's taken _everything_ from me!" The arms retracted into the disc on her back. "Every time he comes back—dozens of people die, Peter, because of him. Every time! And you always just let him go to prison, and he just breaks out again, and kills everyone again, and I can't do it anymore, Peter!"

She wiped angrily at her eyes. Emotional, stupid—Fully justified.

"But, MJ..."

"No 'but, MJ!'" She squared her shoulders. "No 'silly Mary Jane.'"

Peter rose gingerly to his feet, wincing, his suit singed and full of holes. Red marks tracing across his exposed skin, scabs forming from sluggish blood. "MJ, it's just not right..."

"Well it's too late!" MJ jabbed her finger toward Norman. "I did it! And I'm glad, goddammit! I'm never going to get Gwen or Flash back, ever, I'm never going to see them smile again, but Norman Osborn—" She took a shaking breath, throat tight, eyes hot. "Norman Osborn is never going to hurt anyone else ever again, either."

Quietly, Peter watched her.

"I'm sorry, Peter, but nothing you say to me will make me regret this."

He looked away, but he nodded. "I believe you."

"Good." MJ steadier herself, took a moment to breathe... "Good."

She knelt down beside Norman's... body. Mangled, yes. And she began removing his gauntlets, as Peter slowly walked over to her. Mincing steps, a sharp breath, as he saw the full extent of the damage.

Softly, he asked her, "What are you doing?"

She shrugged. "Might be useful."

It was true.

She could have the people at Stark HQ look at the wiring, maybe modify the Iron Spider suit to better utilize bioelectricity. Call herself the Shocking Spider.

No, maybe not.

She set the gauntlets aside and looked at Norman. His wide, empty eyes. His blood soaked face, half-crushed from her rage. His chest open to the night air, chain mail little protection against the Iron Spider's dexterous, powerful arms. The puddle of blood that passed as the remains of his heart.

None of it really registered.

She'd probably throw up later.

But for now...

MJ stood, pulling Norman's dead body up across her shoulders in a fireman's carry, the waldoes re-emerging to secure him against her back. She ignored the blood dripping down her neck, and pointed at the gauntlets on the ground. "You grab those." She picked up her mask from the ground. "And you tell me where the nearest incinerator is."

Peter said nothing, but he snagged his mask with a stray line of webbing and pulled it back on over his face. Picked up the gauntlets from where they lay, and walked to the edge of the roof. Stepped off into the open air with that familiar ease. Dropping like a stone only to rise with the ease of a bird in flight.

One day, MJ would move just as gracefully.

For now, she took a running leap.

**Author's Note:**

> Me and a few others were having a convo on Discord about how much we love MJ, and also about her role in ASM800, and the conversation ended up with me and Cannibal_Wings talking about MJ murdering the shit out of Norman...  
> so...  
> I wrote this...  
> Hey, she shot him once. Just sayin'.
> 
> As far as the Iron Spider suit she's wearing, I've got a few notes on it, and it's pretty similar to Peter's original version, with three waldoes instead of the four you see on the Scarlet Spiders... It's slightly tuned up, made to fit her body (no suction tits tho), got webshooters and wall-crawling technology, fairly tough against small arms fire and non-military grade rifles, as well as some level 1 stab and spike protection...
> 
> For colors, I wanted MJ to not just be red and gold (though I think it looks plenty cool) and customized it to make it her own, a bit... After all, it's got that chameleon/color customization technology so why not personalize it?!  
> So I went with, in the end, a color scheme based roughly on the Chilean tiger spider, with a sort of sable body overall, and bronze-y brownish markings, probably gold eye lenses and possible other details, and then the waldoes are the same dark bronze-brown, with golden stripes and sable tips...
> 
>  
> 
> I don't actually know if this is truly graphic but I figure, why not stay on the safe side.


End file.
